


So Darkness I Became

by deathmallow



Series: The Snark Knight [1]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years ago, Coriolanus Snow became hailed as the "savior" of the city of Panem and gained absolute power.  Six years ago, a broken Haymitch Abernathy hung up the cape and lost faith.  But sometimes, a reluctant hero can discover reason to believe again and find his way.  (A THG/Batman crossover.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I blame bigbigbigday006 and librarian-byday for this. We realized if you take Bruce Wayne at the beginning of TDKR (rich and brilliant but now fortyish, out of shape, isolated, grieving, depressed, and lost) and add alcohol, you pretty much have Haymitch Abernathy. The pieces kept falling into place from there. The Batman canon will be mostly from Nolan'verse with some touches from comics, THG canon is drawn mostly from the books rather than the movie. Hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> Some char ages from THG are reworked slightly to fit the timeline.
> 
> Warnings for death, murder, violence, adult language, kidnapping, some sexual themes and content, mentions of prostitution, organized crime, and drug and alcohol abuse. Most of these will be non-explicit.

The single night of the year Haymitch Abernathy now left his house was July 4th. Most other cities in America would be having barbecues and watching fireworks. Panem, on the other hand, now celebrated its “freedom” in an entirely different way.

Driving over to Snow’s mansion in the heart of the city, telling Woof he’d rather just be alone for it tonight, Haymitch was just another among the dozens of Panem’s finest gathered at the home of Panem’s savior and de facto leader, Coriolanus Snow, for his yearly charity gala. Snow had been on TV earlier today speaking cheerfully about the annual “reaping” of the “generosity” of the wealthy and powerful of the city. “This shows once again that the corruption of old Panem has been swept away. Every year, these citizens demonstrate their goodwill in tribute towards this new Panem, showing that no man or woman will be so powerful that they consider themselves beyond control, beyond justice.”

Funny thing how most of those charity donations never seemed to trickle down to those who needed them—just enough made it to shut the worst critics up. The rich might be less rich but the poor were pretty much just as poor. Of all people, Haymitch knew dressing it up in bullshit about social justice was just a part of Snow’s plan. It was a power play, plain and simple. Every year, knocking any potential challengers down and keeping them in check meant Snow asserted he was the only one holding the keys to Panem.

At the head of the circle to Snow’s mansion, he handed the valet the keys and got out of the car. Slowly—the old wounds from six years ago still ached some days, and tonight looked like it would rain so he felt it down in his bones. He sighed and reached for the cane. Too bad they were a century past walking sticks being considered dapper. 

Poor Haymitch Abernathy, one of Panem’s wealthiest sons. In the hospital for a month as just another rich person beaten and left to die in the streets in the upheaval when Romulus Thread swept into the city and proclaimed a peoples’ revolution against the fat cat crime lords. Right about the same time the mysterious Batman had been killed in front of some convenient television cameras in a fight with Thread. Good thing nobody had made the connection, but then, a lot of people had been killed in that first tumultuous week. _You’ll live, Abernathy,_ Thread had growled softly to him as he lay there on the pavement, _because Snow says your suffering has only begun._

He’d been in no shape to protest that. He’d been barely conscious and he’d faded just a few seconds later. While he was in the hospital in a coma, Coriolanus Snow had come to town, gotten rid of Thread, and been hailed as Panem’s savior. He’d kept an iron grip on it ever since.

He’d gone into a fight he couldn’t win that night with Briar barely two weeks in the ground, and his focus and will were shot to hell. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to win. That little gesture cost forty-six innocent kids their lives while he was unconscious. It cost Panem its freedom by opening the door for Snow. No more stupid useless gestures. He wasn’t getting anyone else killed for him.

Ascending the steps, the cameras clicked and the flashes popped. Tomorrow morning everyone would be analyzing—was that more grey now in his black hair? Was his injury worse that he was using a cane this year? Was that a few extra pounds around his waistline beneath the well-cut vest and tux jacket? He sighed to himself and endured it, especially when Finnick Odair called his name and bounded up the steps to meet him. Ah, the ease of youth. Finnick had left off his tie and popped open the first button of his shirt instead, making his tux all about classy sex rather than dignified elegance. But for Panem’s most popular actor, his looks and his sex appeal were his stock in trade. His bronze hair was casually rumpled in a way to suggest he’d just come from someone’s bed, and it was a style that probably would have run hundreds of dollars before the “liberation”. 

“Haymitch!” Finnick beamed, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “So you’ve emerged again! Life of the party right here, ladies and gentlemen,” he told the press, who laughed.

“Good to see you, Finn,” he said in an undertone. There were a few people who made these nights bearable. Finnick was one of them. Annie Cresta was another. “Annie?”

“On her way with her dad.” Of course Commissioner Heavensbee and his niece-turned-foster-daughter would have to be here congratulating Snow on how he’d kept the streets crime-free for yet another year. Finnick sounded edgy. He always did where Annie was concerned. Haymitch understood that, and understood why Finnick had been smart enough to keep it under wraps after what happened to Haymitch. Openly caring for anyone in a city led by the merciless and corrupt meant inviting that person’s use as leverage. 

“Finnick!” one of the reporters yelled, Caesar Flickerman with his trademark bright blue suit. “What’s this about you being linked to Cashmere Donovan? You’ve been to your last two premieres with her!”

“So many lovely ladies to choose from, and, well, why not be as generous with my affections as I intend to be with my money tonight?” Finnick called back jovially. “Plenty of me to go around!”

They’d have to get some time alone, see what Finnick had heard. Why he bothered asking, Haymitch didn’t know, but even if he’d hung up the cape, he couldn’t seem to entirely stay away, especially knowing Finnick was playing a dangerous game keeping his ear to the ground. Finnick visited Haymitch’s place every now and again, ostensibly to discuss some goodwill project or another, but it wouldn’t do for Snow to hear that the two of them were socializing. Might cause too many questions to know what a young actor and a virtual recluse a little over a decade his senior had in common. Nothing except a fourteen-year-old child star who’d been saved from a kidnapping by Batman, nothing except the years of training Finnick had conducted in secret with him after that. Snow obviously didn’t know who “Robin” had been, probably assumed he had been one of the older teenagers dead in the fire at Haymitch’s house, because Finnick was still alive. It was better to keep it that way. 

“We’ve got to get you a girlfriend, Haymitch,” Finnick said a little too loudly, still laughing, still with his arm around Haymitch’s shoulders in a gesture of fake camaraderie as the cameras flashed away. “I know some very likely ladies. There’s this chick from Russia, or maybe it’s Poland—doesn’t speak any language I know, but well, when it comes to a certain _universal language_? Fluent as anything, believe me. I mean, it’s been six years since your fiancée died—tragic, of course. But you really ought to get laid. Move on.”

Even as he said it, Finnick’s green eyes held the faintest thread of apology. Haymitch shook his head just slightly, almost imperceptibly. _Do what has to be done._ The better Finnick acted his part, the better off for both of them. He lowered his voice, making it look like he was probably indignantly telling Finnick to not spit on the memory of Briar Wainwright by offering up some cheap foreign floozy. “Try to catch you in the billiards room after some of the opening ceremonies. You think we’ll actually have to kneel and kiss his fucking ring this year too?” With that he threw off Finnick’s arm and turned for the front door again, anger in every line of his body. The rage was real, but it wasn’t aimed at Finnick.

Finnick laughed, probably as much at the sarcastic comment as for the act. “Keep in touch about that girl, Haymitch, because solitude isn’t helping your temper.” Haymitch flipped a dismissive wave over his shoulder as he heard Finnick continue talking to the reporters, grateful for his providing the escape.

Gratefully he grabbed the first drink he saw, from a tray held by one of a dozen wait staff circling the ball room. It was just champagne but he’d have to drink plenty just to get through the night. Already he wryly debated the wisdom of having driven himself. By the time the night was over he might not be in much state to drive home. He wasn’t sure he could bear this sober. “Wow, getting the party started early?” the server joked. He studied her for a minute—a short young woman of about thirty with long brown hair twisted into a bun, the plain red shirt and black trousers doing nothing to conceal a lushly curved body. Seeing him watching her, she bit her lip, wide brown eyes suddenly filling with horror and fear. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s just…I’ve never served at one of these parties before…stupid of me, stupid, it was a bad joke. Please don’t report me. I really need this job.”

Almost embarrassed for her because of her sudden overwhelming fear, and how it tugged at something at him, he sighed and just hoped she wouldn’t start crying. Draining the flute of champagne and putting it back on the tray, he snagged another. “Think nothing of it,” he told her gruffly. 

He drank his way through Snow’s appearance and took that as his cue to slip away into the billiards room. Nobody said he had to listen to the same tired old speech as he had for the last five years.

Racking up a game, he was busily considering the angle to sink the orange 5 ball, when he heard the soft creak of the door opening. Glancing up, he saw instead of Finnick, it was Snow, elegantly dressed down to his gray leather gloves, white hair and beard immaculate as ever. “Shunning socializing with your fellow guests as usual, I see.”

He gave a grunt of acknowledgment, sinking the shot, determined to not let Snow affect him, trying to not let his hands tremble. “I came because of my required attendance. Pardon me if I’m not blinded by the illusions and words. I’m one of the initiated, aren’t I?”

“Of course,” Snow said, coming closer and sitting on the edge of the pool table where Haymitch could hardly ignore him. “I do not require your faith in the plans of the League. You’ve shown you don’t have what it takes to follow our path. I’ll settle for you not interfering. I think you’ve seen the cost is clearly too high for you to bear.” 

He stared at the table, cue balanced lightly on his hand. It would be the work of a second to bash Snow over the skull with it. Maybe Snow was even cocky enough to believe he wouldn’t do it. He knew Haymitch’s entire life story, knew him as well as anyone ever had. 

He thought of the boy whose mother died down in the mines, the famous twelve-year-old boy on the cover of _TIME_ so grown up against the grieving adults of that tiny West Virginia coal mining town, trying so desperately to be a man for his little brother. He thought of how he’d watched Ash get shot down six years later outside a movie theater by yet another stupid senseless turf war by the gangs terrorizing the city of Panem. He thought about the Marines, and watching a boy just like him who’d also wanted nothing more than to go home die in agony only because they’d been told they were enemies and Haymitch had been quicker on the trigger. He thought of wandering aimlessly, and Snow telling him, _You are lost, Mister Abernathy, in more than just these mountains, you wish to make sense of a mad and violent world, to find order within so much chaos, to seek the means to impose justice against corruption._ Being taken in, trained, given hope and belief, only to have those shattered when he found out the ruthless lack of feeling or mercy behind Snow’s words. Justice shouldn’t be inhumane. It shouldn’t stamp out the innocent.

Briar’s murder hadn’t been justice, the murder of most of the orphan kids he’d taken in, so full of life and promise and dedication, hadn’t been justice. That had been Snow serving notice that he would reduce anyone to mere leverage to dissuade him from opposing the League’s plan to directly impose that order and security on Panem.

Six years later, it was clear it had worked, because Coriolanus Snow held the power and he wasn’t Batman anymore, he was just Haymitch Abernathy. Forty, tired, a recluse in the mansion with only Woof and occasionally Mags for company rather than the orphans he’d once opened his home to because clearly he couldn’t protect anyone or save anyone. He’d been Batman once, but now all he wanted was another drink. Too bad that serving girl wasn’t in the room.

“No,” he said, taking the shot, missing it, and cursing that. “Of course I won’t interfere with you running your little fiefdom. You’ve made it quite clear the consequences for that are pretty dire.”

“Haymitch,” Snow said, with an almost paternally chiding tone in his voice, “in a few months I accomplished what you couldn’t do in years of running around in a rather melodramatic costume. I’ve brought justice to the people of Panem.”

“There’s still hunger and poverty in plenty here in Panem,” he disagreed, shaking his head. “Particularly after your boy Thread got done destroying things. They might disagree you’ve improved things.” What was Snow going to do anyway, kill him for speaking up? No, so long as he didn’t act out, and he didn’t contradict him in public, his old mentor would let him have his say. He knew Haymitch was a toothless wolf at this point.

“You mistake justice for some childish notion of _equality_. There will always be the successes and the failures, the rich and the poor. That’s natural. But when a few grow too powerful, they become corrupted. They believe themselves to be beyond censure or control and their rot spreads into the fabric of society. The chaos risks everything we hold to be civilized. So the role of the League is to restrain that decay. I came to Panem to restore balance, Haymitch. I restrain power in those who are in danger of having too much. I don’t create some unrealistic social utopia. A poor man and a rich man have the same consequences for their crimes. Neither money and power, nor the pitiful pleas citing a life full of hardship, hold sway. Nobody is above the law, no matter his excuses, and _that_ is true justice.” 

No, one man was above the law and one man certainly had too much power, Haymitch thought, looking over at Snow as he gave his speech, and he was sitting on that pool table. Holding an American city hostage with electric fences and border crossings, guards and dogs, wasn’t exactly just. “Of course. Panem is a much safer place,” he agreed, not pointing out the irony that rather than people being shot in muggings, instead Snow’s “Peacekeepers” could punish or execute someone with a five-minute sham of a “trial”. Of course Snow’s reply to that would have been something to do with Panem’s formerly corrupt court system. Not worth wasting the air to argue it. “I imagine you have guests to attend to, so if you wouldn’t mind,” he picked up the cue again and moved to study the next shot, “I’m gonna finish my game.” He glanced up at Snow and smiled thinly. “Don’t worry, Coriolanus. You’ll get my donation check before I leave.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Nobody had noticed an extra server in all the hustle and bustle, one who wasn’t on payroll. All it had taken was wearing the uniform and sneaking in once things were in full swing. Dropping off her serving tray in the kitchen, Johanna Mason listened to the chatter of the caterers, “…gorgeous dress Effie Trinket’s wearing tonight.”

“Finnick’s looking on the prowl, he’s been flirting with at least a half-dozen…”

“…with the cannoli, you clumsy idiot, don’t you dare drop ‘em…”

She didn’t excuse herself or ask for a bathroom break or the like. That would call too much attention. Instead, she slipped out in a group of servers carrying a massive cake. Slipping away, she was up the stairs in seconds, counting doors-- _third bedroom, north side of the house_. Opening the door, the blue décor confirmed she was in the right place. The red shirt, black trousers, and long brown wig were folded and stuffed into the lightweight black silk carrying sack she’d had strapped across her shoulders under her shirt. She ruffled up her own short brown hair, hating as ever how the wig itched. Dressed now in the close-fitting black catsuit that she’d been wearing under the uniform, she carefully opened the window and crouched on the sill. 

The ancient oak tree was a leap, probably so nobody could climb it and have easy access to the window. But for her, growing up a tomboy climbing trees in Minnesota as child’s play, it was simple. Dropping down to the branch where she’d secured the black waterproof bag last night, hidden from view from the ground or the window by the thick leaves, she grabbed it. Undid the straps that secured it, then she was back up to the branch nearest the window and inside the house again in a twinkling. She crouched and opened the bag. With her gloves and hood, toolbelt and goggles, now she was ready to play. Carefully, she wiped the window frame for her prints before she closed it. 

She pocketed a small pink jade rose from the blue bedroom, wrapping it carefully in soft cloth before stowing it in her goodie bag. Hidden as it was behind other knickknacks on the mantel, she doubted it would be easily missed. She was sure there would be some major scores she could take, but this wasn’t the old days. What she took now had to be discreet, utterly untraceable. Trying to sell or pawn a distinctive item, like a gaudy diamond necklace, would just send Snow’s goons down on her. Little treasures, like almost everyone in Panem was selling now in to help do things like keep food on the table and pay the monthly tax for providing the “Peacekeeper” force, wouldn’t be missed. She’d eat less well than she had in the high-flying days, but the point was she’d eat better than at the soup kitchen. Besides, the thrill of making the rich bastards pay was still there. The pleasure of knowing she’d managed to make them not even notice they’d been robbed, as opposed to when she was emptying out their safes, was new. It was a compromise, but an acceptable one.

In the next few rooms she collected a few more pieces. Going into Snow’s bedroom, she eyed the bed with a sort of reluctant curiosity. He’d never taken a mistress, at least not that anyone had heard. Plenty of women probably would have done it for the security it would provide. Not her, though. She curled her lip at the thought. She’d sooner die than sell her freedom like that.

There was an old photograph on the nightstand—Snow, young and brown-haired. A woman by his side, and even in an old picture, Johanna could pick out someone dressed in that discreetly expensive way that screamed quiet taste and old money. The picture must have been a good thirty years old. A little girl of about kindergarten age, with the look of her mother, was there too. No wife, no daughter now in Snow’s life. Oh well. Not like he was the only one who’d lost people.

Crossing to the wall and finding the hidden catch in the painting frame, she deliberately used the custom-made fingertips of her gloves to leave the prints of some Peacekeeper goon named Gallus Cray all over it. Cray was always down in the Seam, one of the seedier parts of the East End, buying the girls out on the street each evening. Johanna doubted they were usually eighteen yet. He obviously liked them unsettlingly young. 

Flipping down the goggles, seeing the smudges of Snow’s fingerprints on the keys, it was easy after that. She wasn’t sure what significance “7673” had to Coriolanus Snow. What word it might spell on an alphanumeric keypad, or if maybe July 6th, 1973 was somehow significant to him? No matter. The only important thing was that it was the key to opening the thing. Cracking the safe, she left the jewelry, sighing at a beautiful ruby necklace that would have looked far more gorgeous around her own neck than sitting there inside a steel cube. She took only a few bills from the massive stack of cash. 

Closing the safe up, she heard a soft thump behind her and whirled on her heel, ready to confront whoever it was. Obviously her usual tactic of playing sweet and scared and innocent wasn’t going to happen in this case. _Oh gosh, I got lost looking for the bathroom in this huge house and…no, that’s not money in my hand!_

It was that alcoholic idiot Haymitch Abernathy. He’d missed his footing with that cane and that had been the noise, but she was surprised he could be stealthy enough to sneak up on her like that. Usually she heard someone coming up behind her long before it could ever be an issue. Standing there leaning on the cane, he studied her with the same intensity he’d shown when she’d snarked at him downstairs with the champagne tray, before she realized the mistake and quickly dropped back into her role. “Now, I’m pretty sure this will cost you the job long before making fun of me will,” he said dryly.

Shit. He obviously wasn’t drunk enough, and somehow he’d recognized her besides, which surprised her. “Oh please,” she told him, reaching behind her to finish closing up the painting with a reassuring _click_. “Gonna report me?”

He smiled at her with a wry twist of his lips. “Nah. But if you want to try to steal from Coriolanus Snow, I wish you all the luck in the world. You’re gonna need it.”

“I’m pretty good,” she said flippantly. “Haven’t checked the stuff up in your attic in a few years, have you, Mister Abernathy?” She’d made a good heist there, years ago. “I was pretty partial to the forest painting. It got a good price.” She’d actually kept it, hid it in her apartment, which was insane and stupid of her because it was just inviting her to get caught some day. But every time she took it out and looked at it, she felt like she was home again rather than in this lousy city.

He shrugged diffidently. “It all came with the house. I figured someone needed a Wyeth, a Van Gogh, some Barnards antique silver, and a first edition of ‘Gullivers’ Travels’ more than I did.” So he had noticed. She tried to hide an instinctive scowl at how easily he ticked off the entire list of what she’d taken. She also tried to hide how irritated she was that he casually he dismissed those things. Things that would have provided food or shelter for an entire family for months or years were just nothing to him. 

He’d cared about people, once. Everyone had heard about how Haymitch Abernathy took in orphans, how he was working at the DA's with his fiancée to try to take down the crime lords. He was rich, but he wasn’t an asshole about it. He seemed to still remember that he was some kid from some dirty coal mining town down in Bumfuck, West Virginia. But he was lucky. Not every kid suddenly orphaned became the subject of a world-famous magazine cover photo, got millions in the court settlement, and got adopted by a family that loved them. He seemed to have forgotten that somewhere and it pissed her off. 

So the crime lords had killed his fiancée. So what? People had been getting killed almost every day in Panem. Not everyone else was wealthy enough to have the luxury of holing up in their house for the next six years and doing nothing. Most people had to struggle through the pain, fight to stay alive, and eventually they would learn to get by. That was maybe what pissed her off the most—all those advantages in life, and all Haymitch Abernathy could do with it was mope. He’d given up. He obviously drank too much, to judge from the tabloid reports on Snow’s previous galas and how quickly he'd snagged the champagne from her. Someone else deserved all that wealth, someone who’d actually fight and struggle in order to live. 

“Well, this has been a fun discussion, but you’re in my way, so, I’m gonna say ‘Bye’ here,” she made to pass by him. Seeing how he was leaning on the cane, irritated at him dismissing the painting and irritated at him becoming just another of the hypocritical fat cats, she hooked it with her toe and yanked it out from under him.

He surprised her. For apparently being a gimp, he was still fast, because he got hold of her wrist and swept her own leg with his good leg in an instant. So he took her right down with him, twisting aside at the last moment so his full weight didn’t land on her, like he was some kind of fucking gentleman. His breath smelled a little like the champagne, but he obviously wasn’t drunk. She remembered only too late that apparently he’d served in the Marines for a few years and became some kind of war hero before he went missing for years. He pushed off of her, probably sensing that if he stayed on top of her she was going to kill him. “If you need money,” he told her, grey eyes suddenly very sober, getting up to one knee, “I can…”

She knew what he was going to say and she hated him for it. “I don’t want your fucking _charity_ , Abernathy,” she spat, jumping to her feet in one smooth motion. “I can take care of myself.” Where had anyone been to take care of her when she’d actually _needed_ it? “Just keep your mouth shut and don’t cause me any trouble or else.” She didn’t need to say she knew where he lived. Everyone did. 

“Be careful,” his soft words followed her as she pushed past him while he was still getting up, obviously looking like it pained him. She resisted the momentary contradictory urges to both help him up and push him back down. It was his problem. “We all know stealing will get you a flogging, but stealing from _him_ will probably get you publicly hanged.” She knew that full well, and she’d never been caught or flogged before. She was too deft for that, all her mistakes had been back in the old days when she was still learning. But the challenge of it, and the anger at Snow, had made the job irresistible.

“Gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive,” she threw over her shoulder. “But you’ve obviously forgotten what that feels like.” 

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she headed back for the blue room. She would have liked to have explored the last few bedrooms, but Abernathy had cut things short. Better to get out of here while the going was still good. She reached for the window and bit back a curse when she realized her left glove was missing. Obviously he’d yanked it off, and she couldn’t risk going back for it. She could only hope he wasn’t going to hand it over to Snow. Swearing mentally, because getting another glove made was going to be a fortune and several weeks’ wait, she yanked the window open with her gloved right hand and another wrapping cloth from her bag around her left. Jumping to the tree again, she started to secure her toolbag again, with the loot in it now too. Slinging the silk bag across her back again to cross back to the house, close the window, change into her uniform, and walk out, she heard that voice at the window, hearing faint traces of that hick accent left on a few words. “Go on, no need to come on back in to sneak away.” He laughed. “I’ll close the cat door for you here.” Leaning back against the tree trunk, she looked up at Haymitch and scowled. He held up her glove for her to see. “You know where to find me if you want this back.”

“And what do you want for it?” she snapped, immediately uncomfortable that he was holding something over her like this. “Blackmailing me for this and for stealing your stupid painting? Or is the dry spell for poor little Haymitch running too long and you’re thinking I’ll fuck you to get it back?”

He was oddly silent. She couldn’t see his face well in the dark, but she had the sense she’d stung him. Good. “No,” he answered, and now his voice was laced with temper rather than wry humor. “Just show up. No other conditions than that. It’s your call whether you want it back or not.” With that he shut the window a little more forcefully than needed, and he left her out there in the darkness.

She was automatically suspicious about what his game was. He might be a pathetic shut-in, but she didn’t get the sense he was setting up a trap for her. The stray thought crossed her mind, _Maybe he really is just lonely._ Lonely to the point he couldn’t just, what, pick up the phone and invite people over? Whatever. That was his problem. She’d go get that glove, but she’d be ready for anything just in case. “Idiot,” she muttered, strapping on her toolbag and climbing down from the tree to land lightly in the grass, then hurrying off into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Haymitch got up early the next morning, wincing a little at the stiffness in his knee from last night’s cat burglar toppling him to the ground. At least he’d proven he wasn’t a hundred percent useless—he’d taken her down too, and as he glanced at the glove he’d dropped on the dresser, he couldn’t help a slight smirk. Anyone with the gall and brains to rob Coriolanus Snow was worth knowing. If nothing else he ought to try to dissuade her from sticking her neck in that noose. 

He grabbed his blue bathrobe, stuffed the glove in his pocket, handling it with a handkerchief to not add his own prints. Down in the library, he plinked the four-note tune on the piano that sprung the secret door, and soon enough, he was back down in the place he hadn’t been in six years. Surprisingly, the equipment still worked like a dream. There were advantages to having invested in the best. Now he just hoped one of the rolling brownouts that plagued Panem wouldn’t happen right in the middle of his analysis.

Engrossed in his task and smiling with a sense of victory over an equally clever adversary, he had no idea how long he had been down here when he heard Woof’s voice. “Lurking down here in the darkness again,” Woof said, making Haymitch turn in his chair to see his foster father there, signing to him even as he spoke the words. “You’d do better with some fresh air,” and even deaf as a post, Woof Jones could certainly make a tone of paternal disapproval loud and clear. Haymitch might have been forty now, but the part of him that had been that twelve-year-old kid desperate to make this new father love him and approve of him still cringed when Woof had that _look_.

He didn’t need fresh air, there was nothing to see up there; having something here to interest him and keep him busy would do him far more good than limping around the grounds. Besides, it rained like hell last night so it was muddy. “I ran the fingerprints inside the glove on that little cat burglar I told you about,” and he signed as he spoke so that Woof could see it. He tapped a key and the picture and profile of a wide-eyed, brown haired young woman popped up—a bad DMV photo, probably close to ten years old, but nobody had gotten a drivers’ license renewed in six years in Panem anyway. She looked like she’d been caught in the middle of threatening to rip the clerk’s throat out if they didn’t hurry up and take the picture. “Meet Johanna Mason.”

Woof gave a grunt of irascible amusement, his bright blue eyes intent as he leaned against the computer beside Haymitch’s chair. “The most interest you’ve taken in a woman in six years, boy, and of course, it’s because she’s a criminal.” He shook his head. “I’d hoped you would have moved beyond this.”

“There is no moving beyond it,” Haymitch said tightly, looking away. There was no moving beyond Briar, no moving beyond the forty-six dead kids in this very house. Every time Woof tried to play matchmaker, Haymitch’s frustrations only grew. There were too many secrets and sins in him for him to deserve anything like happiness. Besides, Briar had been the only one who had known and accepted him. Everybody else only saw what they wanted to see. “There’s only trying to not fuck it up and try to persuade anyone else from acting stupid.”

“And yet,” Woof observed, “here you are.”

“I know who she is now and when she comes here for her glove—and she will, this is something that’ll be too hard to replace these days—I can try to talk some sense into her.” That was the extent of his interest in Johanna Mason. At this point he was just trying to keep as many people safe as he could, and if he could do that with quiet words preaching caution rather than using shadows and a cape and a mask, so be it.

“Of course,” Woof shook his head. “Breakfast is getting cold,” his tone turned almost teasing, “if you wouldn’t mind prying yourself away from the computer? I feel like I’m talking to a teenager again.”

“Not like I’m in any danger of starving to death, Woof,” Haymitch told him wryly, but all the same, he shut down the computer and hauled to his feet with a faint grunt of effort, flexing the knee and forcing it to bear his weight. 

He finished his breakfast, not wanting to admit that Woof was right and it had gone stone-cold. He just told himself he’d eaten worse, in worse circumstances. He headed upstairs to get the sleep he hadn’t during the night; he rarely slept when it was dark out. That had been a boon during his Batman days. 

Promptly at dusk, the doorbell rang. Answering it, he nodded to the tall young man standing there. “Gale.” 

“Uncle Haymitch,” Gale said with an equally curt nod.

For all the two of them disagreed fiercely on many things, foremost being what Haymitch saw as Gale’s reckless anger and what Gale saw as Haymitch’s cowardice, Gale Hawthorne, and Woof, were the only family Haymitch could claim. Gale still came faithfully every Saturday for dinner. “Uncle” was mostly a courtesy. Haymitch had never had the chance to get Gale’s aunt Briar to the altar. But it was an appreciated courtesy for that, particularly given Haymitch knew Gale’s general low opinion of him.

But perhaps he had reason. Gale knew full well what, and who, Haymitch had been, before Snow. He’d been one of Haymitch’s trainees too, years ago. Snow had screwed up in assuming that Haymitch’s “little birds” had been among the children who lived in the mansion. Those poor kids had all been harmless orphans needing a home to call their own. He’d stuck to the principle of _Don’t shit where you eat_ and he hadn’t taken any of them under his wing as an apprentice the way he had others. He hadn’t seen that _spark_ in any of them that would have made him break that rule and taken them on anyway. They’d just been good kids, kids he’d cared about, who hadn’t deserved to die the way they did.

He nodded also to the blond woman accompanying Gale. “Madge.” Gale had been officially dating Mayor Undersee’s daughter for a year now. But they’d grown up together, trained together under Haymitch’s eye with Finnick and Annie, Delly and Thom. At least all six of them had survived. That was something. Though if Gale couldn’t learn to keep his fucking head down that might change in a hurry.

“I heard from Delly,” Gale said, pushing the door shut behind him and taking off his shoes, “medical supplies are running low again.” Delly Cartwright had gone from a passion for designing shoes to handling a free clinic and soup kitchen down near the Seam. Haymitch understood that it was always understaffed and undersupplied—it behooved Snow to withhold that and thereby make supposedly them immensely grateful for what supplies they did eventually get. 

“However much cash you need for it,” Haymitch said with a shrug. He knew it would take greasing some wheels with money, and probably take Jarron Undersee begging with Snow too to get a truck across the closed city limits from outside, but that latter part wasn’t his business. “I’ll make sure you have it before you leave, Madge.”

“Thank you,” Madge said, poised and calm as she usually was. She’d been good for Gale since his nephew had turned from a headstrong boy into a man with deep conviction but an ugly temper. Madge steadied him and Haymitch didn’t doubt that otherwise, Gale likely would have gone and done something idiotic already, like trying to kill some Peacekeepers. For all he had managed to teach Gale in training, he felt like he’d failed in never quite show him the value of patience and seeing the bigger picture.

Gale was nothing like Briar, but Madge was very much like her aunt Maysilee, he thought, and instinctively tried to stuff down the memories once again of that hellhole. It didn’t help that Madge was twenty now, the same age as Maysilee Donner when she had died, and looked much like her. He remembered sitting with their backs against the cold hard stone of the prison pit, talking about the families in Panem they never expected to see again. _Maribelle got married right out of high school. She couldn’t understand me joining the military, but when you’ve got no money for college? But Jarron’s a good man and he’s well-off, so she’s lucky there. She’ll never want for anything. And Madge is adorable._

_So did my girlfriend’s sister Hazelle. She married one of my best friends, Jonas. We’re all from the group of the Twelve Mine orphans, guess we’re tending to stick together even grown up. They’ve got a little boy now, Gale. No sweetheart for you?_

_No,_ she’d shrugged. _Not yet._ A bleak smile had crossed her lips and with that expression and her weary, dirt-smudged and bruised face, she’d suddenly looked ancient. _I don’t much think there ever will be._

He shook it off only with effort, told himself that Madge wasn’t Maysilee, and followed Madge and Gale to the table, where Woof was already waiting for them.

The meal was civil. That was always a plus. They politely talked about how Gale’s work as an engineer-apprentice was going at the power plant, and how Madge was doing work in her father’s office, all of them politely ignoring that everything that went on in Panem was on Coriolanus Snow’s schedule. The kids politely didn’t ask him what he was up to, because they all knew the answer was the same as ever: _nothing_. He handed out cash where he felt it would help things and not cause trouble, but he wasn’t going to see anyone else dead on his account by acting stupidly. That, of course, was exactly what Gale wanted to do. 

Woof excused himself to head to bed early; he was growing more and more tired these days and Haymitch didn’t want to admit his fear that Woof would leave him soon too and he’d be entirely alone with nobody but his many ghosts. Dessert was in the library—just ice cream in bowls, because things in Panem were far less sumptuous than they had been for the wealthy, but that was all right. He’d rather have the ice cream than French pastries anyway. It felt more honest, more like the kid he’d been growing up near the Twelve Mine, before tragedy and fame had changed his life.

“If you’re not going to use any of the stuff,” Gale said, nodded to the piano, and all three of them knew exactly what he meant, “then give it to me. It’s no point it being useless.” Haymitch could heard the unspoken condemnation of _You’re useless_ lying right beneath it. 

He thought about it for a moment. Gale was a grown man. He wasn’t the half-trained angry fourteen-year-old who’d just lost his daddy as well as his aunt. At twenty, Haymitch had been fighting his own fights, first in the Marines and then later in that prison pit. Then he thought of how he would go account for himself to Hazelle Hawthorne, who’d lost both her sister and her husband in the chaos Snow choreographed with the coming of Thread, if he came to tell her that he hadn’t kept her boy alive either. He thought of how he’d answer to Briar and Jonas’ memories for that too. “No,” he told Gale finally, shaking his head. “The time’s not right. Don’t be a hothead, Gale. You go out there now and try to start something with just a cape and some flashbombs, you’ll end up dead or bringing him down on innocent people. One man can’t solve this.” One man hadn’t even been able to solve it when it was the corruption and the crime lords. It had taken him years to make a dent in things, taking them on one by one. “It’s not like it was back then.” It would have to be one decisive stroke of action that got the ball rolling and got people to rise up and fight if it had any hope at all. Right now he couldn’t see that happening.

“We can’t just do nothing—“ Gale began, grey eyes sparking with temper.

Haymitch sighed. It was the same argument. Sometimes it went a couple months before it came up again, sometimes Gale spoiled for the fight pretty much every weekend.

As usual, it was Madge who stepped in to keep the peace. “Gale,” she said, touching her boyfriend’s shoulder, “we’ve got to be patient. The day will come, and we’ll act. But remember, we have to do it smart.”

Once again, Gale was ready to believe in Madge’s willingness to act eventually. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But seriously, if you’re retired…”

“I’ll think about it,” he said coolly, not quite sure why he didn’t just hand the gear over. It wasn’t like he’d be using it. He told himself it was to keep Gale from having the tools to encourage him to go do something reckless. If he was reduced to wearing hockey pads and a ski mask, he was much less likely to risk it than if Haymitch handed over the body armor, the grapple gun, all of it.

To his credit, Gale accepted that and didn’t just go pound the four notes on the piano. Haymitch knew he wouldn’t just go help himself to the contents of the Batcave, convinced in his frustration and craving to lash out against Snow that the greater good entitled him to do so. He hadn’t reached that point yet. Haymitch prayed that he never would.

“My love to your ma,” he said to Gale as he and Madge headed out. For the people from back in West Virginia, he would always use “ma” rather than the proper “mother” that Panem society had taught him.

“She’d probably like if you’d come see her,” Gale said after a moment’s hesitation.

Haymitch shook his head. Leaving the mansion? No, not except for when it was a Snow-ordered appearance. The last time he left the house willingly, he’d ended up in a coma and come back to the west wing destroyed, hearing about the burned bodies of dozens of children they’d recovered. Better he stay here. “She’s welcome here anytime. And anything she needs…”

“You know we won’t take your charity,” Gale told him with curt pride, and turned to go, his hand on Madge’s back as they went down the walk.

Haymitch watched them go, coal-black and golden-bright, the man disillusioned with his failure of an uncle who came now to visit out of pure family obligation. He thought about Gale at twelve, thirteen, fourteen; enthusiastically throwing his entire energy into his self-defense training. He’d been so bright and passionate to go do some good in the world, before his losses, before the anger turned that passion to something that constantly threatened to tip over into something violent and dark. But then, Gale had never taken a life. He’d never had to reconcile his own soul to now being a killer, and learned the caution of realizing how precious lives could be. With luck, he would never need to experience that.

He sighed and headed up to his bedroom, opening the liquor cabinet and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. He opened the top and hesitated. He made himself at least reach for a glass first, pouring the amber-colored liquid in and then drinking it down in one long gulp. He didn’t bother with expensive liquor any longer, no care for the nuances of it on his tongue. He just wanted the oblivion it could provide.

But not tonight, because he knew he couldn’t fall into a drunken stupor. Waiting for evening to fall, nursing the second glass of whiskey, he was certain she’d come. For no other reason than to get her glove back and to check out the place to see what she could take that was of value. She was a survivor, he could tell that much.

He heard the faintest sound of the window opening. If he hadn’t been in the room, no chance he’d have caught it. He smiled to himself, pleased that he’d read her well. Having turned the armchair to face away from the window, she hadn’t seen him sitting there.

“You _could_ knock, you know, Johanna Mason,” he said casually, finishing pouring another whiskey, and automatically reaching for a second glass, holding it up for her over the level of the back of his chair. ”I’m pretty sure that’s generally considered the usual way to do it.”

He heard the soft _hmph_ of irritation behind him that told him she was peeved at him having sensed she was there, and probably pissed off too that he knew who she was. But she clearly wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of acting startled that he’d identified her. ”Wait five minutes for that creaky old butler to get downstairs and answer the door and tell me whether or not you’re receiving guests? Now what would be the fun in that when I can just get in the window inside thirty seconds?”

”Woof— _Wolf_ ,” he corrected himself, “isn’t my butler. He’s my foster father.” Sometimes he forgot himself, especially since he so rarely talked to anyone outside his circle these days. He’d ended up calling Wolf Jones “Woof” because when they’d arrived little six-year-old Ash couldn’t say “Wolf” quite right yet between his sheer youth and their Appalachian twang. Woof had been a good sport about it, and the fond nickname stuck, even now. He couldn’t help his sharp tone in admonishing her. He liked the challenge of figuring her out, but some lines couldn’t be crossed. The respect he had for Woof was one of them. ”He answers the door sometimes because I’m wrapped up in…things.” He couldn’t say much more there, not without revealing far too much about what lay underneath the mansion.

She padded in front of him with a silent tread, dressed in her dark, sleek catsuit, but without her hood and goggles. Her gloves were standard black leather, and he noticed her brown hair was short. She must have been wearing a wig the night before. Her brown eyes studied him for a long moment. She grabbed the glass and threw the whole drink down neat in one swallow with barely a pause. The woman could definitely hold her liquor. ”Sorry, fine, didn’t know you cared for the old geezer.” He knew even getting that much from her was a lot. ”But I’m still using my own entrance.”

“Suppose there’s no point locking up the valuables with you around,” he said dryly, taking a sip of his own drink. “Considering you were inside Coriolanus Snow’s safe in no time flat.”

She gave him a sly grin in return. ”If you aren’t going to notice immediately that it was gone, obviously you have too much shit lying around in the first place, _Haymitch Abernathy_ ,“she mocked his tone.

He shrugged, pointing to a walnut-paneled cabinet. “That’s the one safe I’ll ask you to not take anything from. Other than that, and Woof’s rooms, feel free to help yourself.” None of it was anything that mattered to him. If she, or anyone else, could make better use of it, so be it.

“Oh, a lady doesn’t expect gifts on the first date,” she mocked him, swiping the whiskey bottle from his hand and pouring herself another drink, sitting down on the arm of his chair and giving a satisfied cat’s smile. Obviously she was trying to make him uncomfortable by invading his space. He tried to ignore the nearness of her, so close he felt like he could feel the heat of her skin radiating through the supple leather of that catsuit, the lush curves right in front of his face. He also tried to ignore how she had the zipper down just a little to show off admirable cleavage. He realized compared to her pure business appearance last night, her casual and even seductive act here was all calculated to throw him off balance. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a little bit of a struggle for it not to succeed.

“Well, a lady probably wouldn’t be in a man’s bedroom on the first date either,” he pointed out dryly, grabbing the bottle back. ”So if we can agree you’re not a lady, and that you probably don’t want to be, let’s move on.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Finding out that her suspicions were right and that the glove would cost more than she had right now, Johanna had sworn to herself and grimly thought she’d go get the damn thing but that was it. She’d be ready too in case Abernathy got any funny ideas about her being in his house with nobody to hear her scream. She still didn’t know what his game was and that meant she didn’t like it.

Fuck, if the man was that bored and horny, he was rich enough he could certainly hire company for the night in a heartbeat. There were plenty of girls, and boys, down in the Seam, selling their bodies to Peacekeepers and others just to try to stay alive.

Slipping onto the grounds of the Abernathy mansion, she eyed it. Never been here before on a job, but her first task was always to investigate, to figure out the best entry route and to have several exits. She might be here by some weird “invitation”, and she just hoped he didn’t have some of Snow’s Peacekeepers there to arrest her, but she certainly wasn’t letting down her guard.

The fire that had killed forty-some orphans Abernathy had taken on the role of foster father for was just one more horror in a month full of them when Thread came to town. At first, the poor had welcomed it, because the uprising targeted the rich fat cats they so hated. Haymitch Abernathy being mugged and beaten half to death was considered just another unfortunate casualty, even if he had actually done a few good things for Panem with his wealth. 

But while he was in a coma, the “Abernathy Fire” and the image of dozens of tiny, white-sheeted bodies on the lawn of the mansion had been a turning point. That was the point they saw that Romulus Thread didn’t care about the line between guilty and innocent. So when Coriolanus Snow came, they’d welcomed him. The crazy bastard known as Batman was dead and couldn’t save them, after all, and Snow had been decisive and open in a way Batman never had. More fools, them—they’d let the wolf right into the flock. 

She saw Abernathy had never rebuilt. The lights glowed in the east wing of the house that stood, imposingly elegant. But the west wing of the house, where the kids had been living, was still a charred and broken ruin, hanging on to the rest of the house like something diseased.

Figuring she’d sneak in through the upstairs and help herself to a few things for the inconvenience of the trip, she was startled when he was actually in his bedroom. Lurking like some damn creeper keeping to the shadows, but she wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of seeing he’d startled her.

Of course his bitching about his own foster father, lecturing her to not call him the butler, made her roll her eyes. She didn’t care what he considered proper behavior. Yeah, all of America knew he was an orphan himself, and that all the orphans of that shitty little hick town had been adopted by families here in Panem. He’d had a little brother who got gunned down in a gang drive-by right in front of the movie theater when the kid was only twelve, and Haymitch had survived. So sad, too bad; little Ash Abernathy’s tragic death became front page news and people cried for the senseless tragedy of it. Where had the news cameras been when her sister Heike was shot dead on a fucking playground? When her brother Bern had been killed in a hold-up at the pizza joint where he worked?

She took his whiskey, though she told herself one or two was her limit. He probably wanted her drunk, the pervert. It was surprisingly low quality booze for such a rich man. Maybe it was those redneck roots of his showing through.

Pouring herself another glass, she said, “Let’s cut this shit out. You have something of mine, Abernathy. Whatever your little game was getting me out here to get it back, here I am.”

He gestured to her glove lying on the side table. “As promised, Miss Mason, your gear.” There was a mocking tone in his voice that she wasn’t quite sure whether she enjoyed it or wanted to slap him. Very possibly it was both. 

She got off the arm of the chair, doing it in a leisurely way and making sure to wave her tits under his nose as she did so—she was pleased to see he looked a little unsettled. “Did you really go to all the trouble to lift my prints from inside that thing just to identify me? Oh, honey, you could have just _asked_ for my number. Are you really that bored?” It also begged the question of what kind of weirdo had fingerprint identification equipment lying around his place.

He laughed, throwing back another whiskey. “Mason, you’re a real piece of work.” The way he said it, though, he almost enjoyed that. “Don’t flatter yourself. I have a friend who ran the prints for me.”

That explained how he’d done it, but she didn’t like the answer. She let out her breath in a sharp, angry hiss. “So what’s your price?” she demanded.

“Price?” he said, looking at her with an expression of confusion.

“You give someone a set of prints to run, and what did you tell them for why you needed it? What do you want to keep you quiet about me, huh?” She stalked towards him, almost ready to claw his eyes out, tired of these bullshit games.

He waved a hand dismissively. “He’s discreet. He didn’t ask why, and he won’t tell.”

“You’ve got a lot of faith in this guy.”

“I know him,” Abernathy said with the simplicity of pure conviction. Finishing his drink, he carefully got to his feet. “Thank you for coming.” He smirked at her. “Help yourself to a few souvenirs on the way out if you like, but remember, not that one safe.”

With that he carefully made his way out into the hall. She waited for his tread on the stairs before springing into action, figuring her time was limited.

Of course she was immediately busy cracking the one safe—giving her carte blanche for everything _except_ what was in that safe was pretty much slapping a sign of “ **STEAL ME** ” on it to Johanna. It puzzled her, though, what was inside. No jewelry, no stacks of cash; there were a few leather-bound portfolios that were probably deeds to the house and the like. But shifting through the rest, she didn’t know why he would be keeping random junk like this like it was some kind of treasure. A well-worn Marine KA-BAR knife in there, or a pressed white rose, or some old photographs, or what looked like a lump of coal in a glass case—had Haymitch been a bad boy some Christmas? A gold pin, shaped like a bird. There were also two sets of dogtags: the ones labeled for “H.J. Abernathy” were obvious, but she had no clue on the set belonging to USMC 2nd Lieutenant M.L. Donner (Protestant, Blood Type A Negative).

“You’re not very good at following directions, are you?” came that dry voice. She really had no idea how the fuck he sneaked up on people like that, gimp as he was.

She could do one of two things. She could attack him, but he’d shown last night that he was still enough of a Marine to handle that. But somehow the other option made a smile curve her lips. Crossing the room to him, she seized his shoulders and kissed him—hard, insistent, the kind of kiss that was an invitation to the idea that she could most definitely rock his world. She was counting on the fact of realizing there was a bed right behind them.

He startled a little, which sometimes happened with the twitchier ones, or the ones who hadn’t been laid in a while. She was sure he belonged in the latter category pretty neatly. But after that most of them were eagerly responding, either with enthusiastic passion or slobbery clumsiness or groping her like a lech. Usually she’d kiss them and use the opportunity to get a good twist of the nuts or a threat in the ear to make her point, but in the case of Abernathy, she was surprised she was toying with the idea of actually pushing him back on that bed and fucking him. Maybe it was the sheer challenge of him, that irritatingly inscrutable “don’t give a shit” attitude he had, and seeing if she could crack that. 

For just a moment she felt that hunger and loneliness in him, raw and wild; then it was as if he slammed a door in her face. He kissed her in return, but it was calm rather than heated. He kissed like too many people she knew from her days in the business, she realized with an uncomfortable feeling—skilled but utterly detached.

To say her attempt to unsettle him had backfired on her was an understatement. Instead, she was the one left knocked off balance. He was the one who stepped back and looked at her with that smirk of his, but his eyes were strangely empty. “Curiosity now satisfied, sweetheart?” he asked her coolly. He nodded towards the safe. “On all counts?”

She felt her temper flare at how he was actually making her feel embarrassed. “More or less,” she told him, managing a tone of nonchalance. “Well, if that’s all…” She headed for the window. Straddling the sill, she looked back, unwilling to let him have the last word. “We both know you could stand to get laid because you’re to the point of blackmailing and stalking a woman to get her to your creepy lair here.” She gave a half-shrug. “Although at least that means you have my address and phone number, don’t you? So,” she drawled, giving him a broad, careless smile, “go ahead and call me whenever you decide you’re not too much of a pussy for a good time.”

“Yeah, and good night to you too, Mason,” came the exasperated answer as she swung her way down out of the window.


	3. Chapter 3

Johanna waited until Peacekeeper patrol had passed, in their pristine white uniforms-- _Snow_ white, how cute. _Unstained honor in the pursuit of justice_ or some shit like that, which had been Snow’s pronouncement about inflicting them on the still-struggling city of Panem. Then she hurried across the street, backpack slung over one shoulder, and knocked on the battered wooden door with a red cross painted over the top.

Stepping inside the building, she found Delphinium Cartwight quickly enough, bustling around busy as ever. She wasn’t quite sure when and how—it sort of crept up on her. But she and Delly had worked together during the occupation helping run supplies underground, and by the time Snow kicked Thread out, they were fast friends. When Delly had started up the clinic, Johanna had been more than happy to lend a hand, by getting the supplies she needed with whatever she’d skimmed from the houses she’d been in recently. That way the fat cats of the city paid for those in desperate need of painkillers or antibiotics or sutures and to her mind that was only fair.

“Here, I did some unloading work for the goons again and asked for some supplies as payment,” Johanna said, handing Delly the backpack stuffed of morphine, antibiotics, bandages, vitamin injections, disinfectant, and the like. All the little things that turned a clinic from a place relying on prayer and soap into a place that actually gave people a fighting chance. That was the arrangement—Johanna went and bought the stuff off Snow’s Peacekeepers with the proceeds from her jobs, and then handed it over to Delly. She bought only bit by bit, rather than in one big load that couldn’t be explained; that way if anything ever went south, Delly’s clinic wouldn’t go under by her being connected to stolen goods.

Delly knew better than to believe Johanna had gotten the stuff in trade for working for Snow, but she was willing to pretend otherwise. Thom, Delly’s boyfriend, obviously wasn’t as willing, and once again he shook his head and said softly, “We’re grateful but be careful.”

“Nine lives, Thomas,” she said flippantly, chucking him under the chin as she passed by. It was something of a feat given he was nearly a foot taller than her. Apparently he was a genius with cooking the books here to make them pass Peacekeeper scrutiny. “I’ll be back with more next week.”

As she turned to go she saw the boy who’d been buying supplies right after her, the one with the dark looks of Twelve Mine that Thom and Abernathy both had also, and with a spike of temper she leaned in and hissed at him, “Stay the fuck off my turf if you know what’s good for you, little boy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, someone gave me the money,” he snapped, pushing past her impatiently. 

Just from his reaction and that clear burst of temper he seemed like a pretty poor liar, which meant it was true. Now wasn’t that interesting. He’d make a poor thief anyway, looking as obvious as he did. He was probably the sort whose idea of fucking over Snow’s thugs would involve angrily and righteously charging down the street with a rifle and getting his brains blown out by a half-dozen Peacekeepers all at once. She wasn’t nearly stupid enough to do that. She’d seen what happened to the people that were and she wanted no part of it.

Hands in her pockets and shoulders hunched over a bit, she hurried away, trying as ever to make the Peacekeeper patrols notice her as little as possible by looking like she was just going about her business as usual. But as she passed the door of the Arena Street Peacekeeper HQ, she thought it might be a pleasure to break in and wreak some real havoc. But then, Snow would make a lot of people pay for his goons looking like fools. 

She went then to Cinna’s shop. Before the Occupation he and his wife Portia had been fashion designers. She still had an evening gown designed by them in the back of her closet—dark blue, strapless, a constellation of glittering silver embroidery on it. Wore it for a heist she remembered particularly fondly, fleecing some old goat out of the family jewels, all while sweetly insinuating she’d take care of his “family jewels”. She’d left him blindfolded and tied to the bedposts, naked and ridiculous, while she coolly sauntered off in her elegant gown, toting a fortune in jewels and cash. 

But even a designer offering sharp design at relatively affordable prices had little place in this new world of theirs. The racks now held jeans, shirts, more of the usual fare. But Cinna had always been reliable for— _special orders_. She’d gotten her work uniform from him back in the day. She’d claimed blithely that she was going to a dungeon club. He hadn’t blinked an eye at it.

“I don’t need that birthday present,” she told him, leaning over the glass-fronted counter.

“Oh?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“I got the glove back,” she muttered, leaning closer. “But I might have some pieces that could interest you.” After all, given the trouble Abernathy caused her, she’d certainly helped herself to some of his trinkets. She hadn’t fenced them all yet, too much risk. But Cinna would almost always buy these days, from anyone selling anything from a genuine article to a shitty DVD, because the man knew how desperate everyone was. “I’ll bring ‘em by tomorrow?”

“Good,” he said with a nod. He reached for the silk scarves draped on a display rack. “Green—flattering to you,” he coaxed, holding one in mottled woodland green tones ranging from the deepest near-black to pale mint.

She took it in her hands, snapping the fabric tight and testing the strength. She noticed Cinna wincing. It was indeed genuine silk, though she wouldn’t have expected a cheap polyester knockoff from him. She could use this, all right. Bind someone up in a hurry, catch it around their throat and persuade them to back the hell off. A girl could never have too many tools at her disposal. “How much?” Money was tight. It was always tight, and no telling how her Wiress was doing this week, given as much as Johanna had been out, and how fluid the demand for tech could be. Some weeks Johanna’s roomie had a genuine job, sometimes she had to suck it up and work with the Peacekeepers, and sometimes her roomie was reduced to the likes of furtively selling bootleg DVDs that Snow had prohibited as “unwholesome”. It was Wiress that had designed most of Johanna’s work “accessories”.

“Promise me you’ll wear it proudly when this is all over and tell people where you got it,” he said cheerfully. “That’s all.”

“Done,” she said. She’d have looped it around her neck, but even a silk scarf was a bit much in the oppressive, muggy July heat. She could feel her bra starting to chafe with the sweat—time to get home. Folding the scarf, she tucked it neatly in her bag and headed out the door, careful to look in a hurry to mind her own business.

Seeing one of Panem’s many castoff orphans, his body beneath ragged and nearly-colorless clothes probably as sharp and bony as his face, she watched as he ducked into an alleyway, probably to dumpster-dive in the minutes before another patrol came by. That sight cooled her thoughts on messing with the goon squad and tugged at her emotions, wistfulness and anger warring again and as usual, the rage pulled ahead. There used to be orphanages that would take the kids in—Abernathy’s had been one of the best, to hear tell, though that one opened far too late for her. But the Cedar Street Mission had been clean and comfortable, and Bill “Blight” Arnesson had been good to them, half a gruff young bearded Santa and half a kindlier Oliver Twist’s Fagin. Blight had taken kids in, taught her and so many other kids the practical skills on how to survive, and if that was on the crooked side of the law sometimes, that was corrupt old Panem in those days. Even the cops accepted it. 

Doing something like learning about cars meant the ability to both work in a repair shop for legitimate pay and then boost some fat cat’s ride and part it out in a hurry. She’d prided herself on her speed at both oil changes and chop jobs when she was barely old enough to have a license herself. At least they’d gained some skills at Cedar Street—Abernathy’s coddled kids had been sitting ducks during the occupation, and now these poor little bastards were left on the street with nothing and nobody.  
Maybe that was better in the end. Having nobody meant becoming self-reliant, meant that nobody was able to get close enough to let down, backstab, or betray. Some days she wondered if even Cinna or Wiress might sell her out, given the right incentive.

~~~~~~~~~~

Admittedly, his souvenir of the previous night was better than the one before—a kiss rather than a stiff, bruised knee. Although given how long it had been since he’d been kissed, he’d have preferred to break that streak with something genuine, if he ever did. He hadn’t planned on it.

She kissed like a professional, all calculated seduction rather than real feeling. With that and her snide jabs about his wealth, he would have bet that she’d had to peddle her body more than once in the past to get by. Panem hadn’t been kind to its poorest, even before Snow came along. Not that he’d availed himself of the local “talent”, as goons like Cray liked to jokingly call it. But the pit taught him more than how to kill without feeling. He’d learned to kiss and fuck without feeling too. Sometimes as he finished a fight he’d want to look up at the shadowy figures there against the too-bright sun, men and women cheering the victor and catcalling the dead loser.

Several dozen of the world’s elite, titans of industry, celebrities, billionaires and politicians and royalty, regularly went to a secret and Godforsaken hole in the middle of the vast Asiatic Russian wasteland to watch men and women fight and die for their amusement. The winner was always for sale after that—for the right price. The sort that enjoyed deadly sport usually got their blood up enough watching it to want to fuck it out afterwards. The bidding for the victor was always fierce. He’d had one or two that didn’t even want him to wash beforehand, coming to them reeking of the pit and with still-bloody hands. A few even wanted it down in his cell with the other inmates watching, rather than in the posh “victory suite” in the villa that stood at the pit’s edge. 

The day he finally stood on the edge of that pit, a free man rather than a whore dragged up for a few hours only to be cast back down into darkness, he swore he’d remember their names. And someday, they would answer for the lives. At least he hadn’t had to kill Maysilee, but several of the others from their unit weren’t so lucky. He remembered the looks on their faces as they died. 

They’d never known his name, his “fans”—his buyers. Called him simply "Bat", for whatever reason. Maybe they'd run out of other animal names. Maysilee had been "Jade". They’d never had a clue that a man whose wealth could rival theirs stood there on the sand. To them he was just an American Marine, captured and brought there to be their plaything. He wondered anew if they would have cared, if seeing someone on their level brought so low would have frightened them into awareness. He doubted it. Greed always spoke loudly.

She kissed and played people like a professional whore and robbed like a professional thief. And unfortunately, he had the feeling someday he’d watch her hanged on television. It wasn’t that she was too stupid or too new to take the risk seriously. She just enjoyed proving them all wrong. 

It struck him that maybe she’d been the “Catwoman” that plagued Gotham. A master thief and he’d never caught a glimpse of her. Granted, he’d been concerned with rather larger fish to fry.

The doorbell rang suddenly, chimes sounding loudly through the house. Realizing it was Woof’s morning off to visit his friend Mags in town, Haymitch sighed, tossed back the last of his whiskey, and put the bottle down. So much for peace and quiet—and he’d been about ready to go back to bed. Blearily staring at the clock, he saw it was actually 2 PM already. Well, didn’t that beat all.

He debated whether to answer the door or not. It might be Peacekeepers or the like, and with those twits, it was best to not blow them off. He really didn’t need another lecture on Snow about his behavior, like he was a misbehaving puppy. 

It was slow going down the stairs, but he’d thought his knee felt good enough to leave off the cane. Though that was a mistake, as he was limping anyway by the time he reached the massive oak front door. Opening it, Haymitch stared at the two girls on his doorstep, maybe twelve or thirteen, wincing at the sunlight like a sharp spike through his brain, and said, “Well, let me see, it’s not Girl Scout cookie season, though I tell you, I’d fucking kill for some Thin Mints after six years.” Every year some of the kids in his house had been selling Girl Scout cookies, or stuff for Boy Scouts—no, wouldn’t go there, so he abruptly shut those memories down. “Magazine subscriptions, or maybe bringing me the word of our Lord and Savior?” He’d be surprised if any evangelists could do their business in Panem, not with Coriolanus Snow basically setting himself up as their new godhead.

The dark-skinned girl just grinned a little at his wry humor, but the blond girl with her gave him a somewhat stern look in response, though the lines of exhaustion in her face counteracted it somewhat. “My father was Burt Everdeen,” she told him.

Now that changed everything. He remembered—Burt had married a local girl. Blond as anything, and they’d had kids, didn’t he, two of ‘em, though they’d been born while Haymitch was…gone. He’d been gone almost twelve years, between the Marines, the wandering, and the training with Snow. A lot had happened in that span between eighteen and thirty. His childhood friends had grown and married and had kids and moved on. They’d long since given him up for dead and when he came back, with no answers about where he’d been, they didn’t quite know how to fit him in their lives again. Burt was just one more quietly grown rift that had never quite mended. “You sure you don’t have those Thin Mints?” he inquired hopefully.

Blondie sighed and admonished him, “Well, you kind of smell like you’re drinking all your calories, Mister Abernathy, and you know nobody’s got cookies to speak of.”

So she got some points for honesty. “So what do you want, kid?” he asked. “And who’s your buddy?”

Blondie bit her lip and told him, “Dad died during the occupation.” Haymitch’s heart sunk low to hear about Burt Everdeen’s death—just one more thing that had slipped through the cracks with him during the turmoil. “But…my mom and my sister, Katniss…the Peacekeepers…”

That was all she had to say, and he held up a hand to halt her, saying, “Yeah, I get it,” and the girl looked relieved to not have to tell the entire tale of however they’d met their end.

“I’m Rue,” the little black girl said quietly, stepping forward as if to protect Blondie and to diffuse the tension, “Rue Kitteredge.”

“Your parents?” he asked, already sensing he knew the answer even before Rue gave him a look with solemn dark eyes, shaking her head. They were still neatly dressed, and Rue’s hair was carefully braided as if by loving hands. They couldn’t have been on the streets that long, but they looked tired and hungry and a bit dirty, and mostly just scared shitless.

“I’m Prim—Primrose,” Blondie finally offered. “Dad always said that…if something happened, Katniss and me ought to come to you.” She bit her lip again, Haymitch assumed it must be habit of hers, and she was obviously remembering her sister wasn’t there anymore.

Staring at the two of them, he thought they must be desperate as hell to come to him, but God knew he wasn’t such a bastard as to refuse a good meal to a hungry kid who trekked all the way out here. “Fine,” he said brusquely, “let’s at least get you fed and cleaned up.” 

Though once they ate like they’d never see food again, reminding him just how bad it was out there in the streets, and settled in—he noticed they refused to sleep in a separate bedroom, as if they had to keep an eye on each other, _guard_ each other—Woof found him down in the library, staring at the piano and thinking about bygone days when any kid in need could have relied upon him.

“And what do you propose to do with Miss Everdeen and Miss Kitteredge in the morning?” Woof said, gnarled hands still graceful as they signed to him. “We both know you’re not the type that’s just going to throw them back into the streets, Haymitch.”

Haymitch looked up at him, realizing the old man was right. He should have just slammed the door in their faces initially, because dammit, now that he’d let them in he couldn’t just turn them loose, knowing what they’d head back into. “I don’t know,” he said in frustration, his own signs rapid and impatient, “but if they have a single ounce of common sense, those little girls just came here for a free meal—hopefully they’re gonna remember what happened to forty-six other kids who thought I could protect them, and they’ll run while they still can.”

~~~~~~~~~~

This house unsettled Prim in a visceral way, half-ruined and the rest of it just abandoned and silent. But she’d taken Rue and come here to Mister Abernathy because that was the only option left—the community home was overflowing, and two twelve-year-olds just couldn’t make it alone on the streets forever. Katniss had, she’d kept them together for three months after Mom and Dad died, but…all over a stupid loaf of bread. She remembered what her dad had always told her: _The lifespan of a cop in this city isn’t the longest. Something ever happens to me and your mom, Katniss, Prim, you take Prim and you go to Haymitch Abernathy, he’s got that home for kids and it’ll be a damn sight better than the City Orphanage. He’s a bit…odd, Haymitch, after the war, but he cares about ‘em._

She couldn’t sleep. The bed was too big and too soft, the house too quiet. Back home with Katniss the bed was small and the hiss of the water pipes in the walls and the howl of that alley cat Katniss couldn’t stand kept a constant level of background noise.

Although she recognized that place wasn’t “home”, not anymore. Not since the Peacekeepers came and dragged…Prim consciously envisioned closing the thick steel door of her mind on that, slamming it, barring it, locking it. But she still heard the faint echo of Katniss and Peeta telling her to run.

After… _it_ happened…and she was alone, she’d found Rue. Then it was sleeping in alleyways, sleeping in shifts to protect each other, hoping to not attract the attention of freaks and weirdos who might like a preteen girl. She’d had a Peacekeeper offer her a place for the night, and the way the man’s eyes lingered too long, the way his fingers curled at her sides as if the Peacekeeper was afraid they’d fly up to touch Prim’s still-girlish body, made her lie and say her mother was waiting at home for her. Soup kitchens and digging through trash bins, until she’d remembered what her father told her about Mister Abernathy.

He hadn’t been happy to see them. She’d watched his fingers tighten on the door as he joked about Girl Scout cookies and breathed hot, harsh alcohol fumes on both of them. They’d tightened as if he was ready to slam the door in their faces with force. But instead he’d let them in the door and fed them, given them a bed, muttered a vague apology about the lack of clean clothes. She’d seen the west side of the house as they approached. That burned ruin was probably where the other orphans slept, years ago. Of course their clothes had been destroyed.

She’d bathed for the first time in days, and the first time in weeks that wasn’t from a sink. She ought to be happy. She ought to feel safe. She didn’t.

“Rue?” she murmured, rolling over.

“Mm?” Rue’s murmur was soft but crisp, lacking the slurry tone of sleep. So she’d been wide awake too.

“We had dessert in the library,” she said softly. Ice cream—she hadn’t had ice cream in a couple of years. She’d almost cried at the taste of it, and looking around at the thousands of books, she could have cried again. “Maybe reading will help us get to sleep?” She didn’t think Mister Abernathy would mind if they borrowed a book or two. At least, she hoped not. There were so many she didn’t think he’d notice, especially since after those few moments when he looked at her sharply, intently, when she told him who her father was, otherwise he looked at the world with a vaguely distant gaze, like a man who didn’t really want to see it.

They slipped downstairs quietly, getting lost once and ending up in the kitchen instead. The size of this place—their apartment with Mom and Dad had been only a little bigger than the size of Haymitch’s kitchen. While Rue exclaimed over the bookshelves, with more books than she’d seen in her entire lifetime, Prim brushed her fingertips over the piano keys, remembering happier days with her mom playing the old piano that was one of the few things she’d brought with her from her old life, and her dad and Katniss singing while her mom taught Prim to play, the four of them in a pair of duets. 

Like instinct, before she could think how stupid she was to make noise in the middle of the night, her fingers tapped out the four-note whistle the one Burt Everdeen said his family used to use in the mines of West Virginia to communicate, the one that meant: _It’s safe and sound, don’t you worry about me._

She wasn’t a singer like Katniss was—had been—but her ear was good, and she could tell the piano was badly out of tune. She winced, the dissonant sound of the notes jolting her out of the memory of her dad whistling that tune every night when he got home from his shift at the police station, letting them know he was OK. Being one of the few clean cops in Panem was dangerous, even back when the Batman had apparently been keeping watch over the city. 

She watched, startled, as a panel in one bookcase slowly swung open with the creak of hinges left long unoiled. The door beckoned to her and she wondered what Haymitch Abernathy was hiding down there. He seemed like he had a lot of secrets and a lot of things he didn’t say, all hidden behind an appearance that was every bit as run down as his half-burned house. 

Rue’s dark eyes were wide. “Wow,” she said, staring at the open passageway with undisguised interest, seeing the flickering lights lining the passageway. “Now what’s he keeping down there?”

"Should we..." But Rue had already scampered through the doorway, and with a glance of frustration back over her shoulder to make sure nobody was coming downstairs yet, thinking Rue was too much like Katniss, Prim couldn't help but follow. For all they knew Mister Abernathy was keeping people in a pit in the basement, like "Silence of the Lambs". (Dad had yelled at Katniss and Peeta later for letting Prim watch that movie, but there were so few movies these days that Prim had insisted that she could handle it.) Even if he wasn't, he might well be angry that they were sneaking into this hidden place. She doubted he'd hidden it just for fun.

Although even she wasn't prepared for what they saw at the bottom of the narrow twisting, winding path between tightly brick walls. Even the thndering waterfall and swooping bats didn't hold her attention for more than a minute compared to what was off to her left. She'd been little, only six, when the Batman was killed. She'd only seen a few clips of him, grainy raw footage from news cameras or camera phones, back when people had camera phones. It usually played when President Snow wanted to remind people that the new order had no place for a crazy vigilante.

But even she knew enough to know that the Batman was dead, so that really didn't explain why, along with what looked like either a lot of computers or the world's best entertainment system, a case that lit up when she stepped near it contained what looked like the matte night-dark body armor and cape once worn by the Batman.

Rue turned to her with an expression of astonishment, smacking Prim lightly on the arm. "How does he have..." She didn't know. Had he bought it, after the Batman was dead?

A voice sounded behind her. Deep, male, obviously irritated, and with the same trace of a West Virginia accent that Dad had. "If you need something to help you sleep, I really recommend whiskey or sleeping pills rather than snooping."


End file.
